iTunes Match expands to Italy, Greece, Portugal, Austria, more

Apple's iTunes Match subscription service expanded to a number of new countries on Monday, including Italy, Greece, Portugal, Austria and Slovenia.

The rollout of iTunes Match to a handful of new locales was first noticed by MacStories. In addition to iTunes Match being available for ?24.99, customers in Italy can also view previously purchased content, and automatic downloads are available for applications and books.

The previous expansion of iTunes Match took place in January, when availability arrived in 19 more countries across Latin America and Europe. They included the Netherlands, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Latvia, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic and others.

Another expansion occurred in December, when iTunes Match launched in 17 new countries. Prior to Monday's expansion to Italy and elsewhere, iTunes Match was available in 37 total countries. Apple's official site does not yet reflect the new countries.

Apple first launched iTunes Match last November. It allows users to access music they own in the cloud, even if it was not purchased through iTunes.

For an annual fee of $24.99 in the U.S., Apple will scan and match customers' music libraries with its own catalogue on iTunes and add matched songs to their iCloud accounts. Music that is not offered on iTunes will then be automatically uploaded to iCloud.

Any chance of them expanding it to accommodate libraries larger than 25,000 songs?

To me it seems like a limitation brought on by the record companies, because to my knowledge Google caps their Play Music service at 20,000 songs. Must be something they have to negotiate with the labels.